Msgr Dominick Fullam @TDFullam

@joshwhitlatch @Rojosohu

@SaintEcclesia @briankeepsworth

@sola_chad Funny, that looks like someone playing the game that sidesteps the longstanding English definition of "pray" (to ask humbly) and dodges the Bible's understanding of "dead" (alive in Christ).

Did Jesus fulfill the Old Testament law? Yes. Did He fulfill it perfectly (and uniquely)? Yes. And because that is the case, He perfectly and uniquely fulfilled the commandment to “Honor your father and your mother.” His Father is God the Father, and obviously Jesus perfectly honored Him. Because He is eternal, the eternal Word/Son of God, Jesus perfectly and uniquely HONORS his Father still (present tense) and always has. In part, He now does so also through us, through His Church. Jesus also perfectly and uniquely honored His mother. As the only Son who preceded His mother in time, and as the Word through Whom all things were made, the eternal Son of God honored His mother even in making her. Her coming to be, her conception, was wholly and uniquely honored by her Son. Also, because He is eternal and because Mary’s soul lives on, Jesus continues to HONOR her, right now (present tense). Because He continues to perfectly honor her, we disciples do as well. We don’t honor her instead of Jesus; we honor her because of Jesus. Jesus perfectly HONORS her, and that means always and everywhere, both in Heaven (personally) and on earth (via His Body/Bride, the Church). Now, the Bible does not explicitly narrate the Mary’s bodily Assumption, but if we acknowledge that Jesus in Heaven RIGHT NOW perfectly and uniquely honors Mary, the new Ark of the Covenant, her bodily presence with Him is a fitting theological conclusion. The early Church and Church history attests to this. We have no relics of the one whom “all ages will call…blessed.” Mary’s Assumption anticipates the coming to perfection of all the faithful. On earth, the honoring of Mary takes place through His Body, His Bride, the Church. Jesus loved Mary and LOVES her. His Bride loves whom the Bridegroom loves. After all, Mary is OUR mother too, if we are truly in Christ, wedded to Him, one with Him. One cannot be the mother of the Head and not the mother of the Body too. We who are in Christ must also honor the one whom Jesus honors and gave us to be our mother too: Mary, the mother of the the Lord and of the Church. Honor and love are the right and the only approach of the Church to her mother, and neither is worship. A lot of words, I know. And I’m sure that opens me to criticism because of their apparent referent, but everything I’ve said here is ultimately about Jesus Christ and Who He is to all of us. He is faithful, He is obedient. The question is not whether Christians should honor Mary. The question is whether we disciples of the One who perfectly fulfilled the command to “honor…father and…mother" should honor her any less than He does.

There are many ways to interpret “It is finished” (tetelestai; see below) and your understanding, that the debt of sin is dealt with, does not leave out the possibility that God has a particular way of applying that redemption, His mercy, to the sinner who dies in friendship with Him, but who still is attached to his/her sins. A final purification (purgatory), for those who need it, is alluded to in and can be concluded from Sacred Scripture (2 Mac 12:38–46, Wis 3:1–9, Sir 2:5, Dan 12:10, Mal 3:1–4, Zech 13:8–9, Isa 6:5–7, Isa 1:25, 1 Cor 3:11–15, Mt 12:32, Mt 5:25–26, Lk 12:47–48, Lk 12:58–59, 1 Pet 1:6–7, 1 Pet 3:18–20, 1 Pet 4:5–6, Heb 12:14, Heb 12:22–29, Rev 21:27, Ps 51:9–12, Ps 19:13, Prov 17:3, Prov 20:9, Isa 4:4, Ezek 36:25–27, 2 Tim 1:16–18, Rev 7:14, Tob 12:9, Sir 3:30; yes, I know you do not accept all these books as biblical, but the early Church accepted them as such). This final purification (purgatory) is not really a distinct “place” from heaven, but is perhaps better understood as “heaven’s hospital.” Definitely not heresy, and you, brother, do not get to decide by yourself what heresy is or is not. Furthermore, “tetelestai” needn’t be interpreted only in the way you do. Other understandings: Jesus’ earthly mission is complete; He has accomplished the work the Father gave Him. Scripture is fulfilled; the prophecies and promises concerning the Messiah have reached their fulfillment. His Passion is complete; His suffering has reached its appointed end. His sacrifice is complete; He has offered Himself definitively to the Father. The Passover is complete; Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, has fulfilled the Passover sacrifice. The fourth cup is drunk; the Passover begun at the Last Supper is consummated on Calvary. The New Covenant is established; Jesus’ blood seals the New Covenant. Sin’s debt has been dealt with; redemption has been accomplished. Perfect obedience is accomplished ; the Son has perfectly fulfilled the Father’s will. The Old Covenant reaches its goal; its sacrifices, priesthood, and symbols find their fulfillment in Christ. Satan’s apparent victory becomes his defeat; the Cross is Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the powers of evil. The “hour” has reached its climax; Jesus’ glorification through the Cross has arrived. The earthly life of Jesus is complete; He has completed the work proper to His earthly ministry, though His risen work through the Holy Spirit continues.

There are many ways to interpret “It is finished” (tetelestai; see below) and your understanding, that the debt of sin is dealt with, does not leave out the possibility that God has a particular way of applying that redemption, His mercy, to the sinner who dies in friendship with Him, but who still is attached to his/her sins. A final purification (purgatory), for those who need it, is alluded to in and can be concluded from Sacred Scripture (2 Mac 12:38–46, Wis 3:1–9, Sir 2:5, Dan 12:10, Mal 3:1–4, Zech 13:8–9, Isa 6:5–7, Isa 1:25, 1 Cor 3:11–15, Mt 12:32, Mt 5:25–26, Lk 12:47–48, Lk 12:58–59, 1 Pet 1:6–7, 1 Pet 3:18–20, 1 Pet 4:5–6, Heb 12:14, Heb 12:22–29, Rev 21:27, Ps 51:9–12, Ps 19:13, Prov 17:3, Prov 20:9, Isa 4:4, Ezek 36:25–27, 2 Tim 1:16–18, Rev 7:14, Tob 12:9, Sir 3:30; yes, I know you do not accept all these books as biblical, but the early Church accepted them as such). This final purification (purgatory) is not really a distinct “place” from heaven, but is perhaps better understood as “heaven’s hospital.” Definitely not heresy, and you, brother, do not get to decide by yourself what heresy is or is not. Furthermore, “tetelestai” needn’t be interpreted only in the way you do. Other understandings: Jesus’ earthly mission is complete; He has accomplished the work the Father gave Him. Scripture is fulfilled; the prophecies and promises concerning the Messiah have reached their fulfillment. His Passion is complete; His suffering has reached its appointed end. His sacrifice is complete; He has offered Himself definitively to the Father. The Passover is complete; Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, has fulfilled the Passover sacrifice. The fourth cup is drunk; the Passover begun at the Last Supper is consummated on Calvary. The New Covenant is established; Jesus’ blood seals the New Covenant. Sin’s debt has been dealt with; redemption has been accomplished. Perfect obedience is accomplished ; the Son has perfectly fulfilled the Father’s will. The Old Covenant reaches its goal; its sacrifices, priesthood, and symbols find their fulfillment in Christ. Satan’s apparent victory becomes his defeat; the Cross is Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the powers of evil. The “hour” has reached its climax; Jesus’ glorification through the Cross has arrived. The earthly life of Jesus is complete; He has completed the work proper to His earthly ministry, though His risen work through the Holy Spirit continues.

Certainly, all believers share a royal priesthood because we are one with (i.e., members of) the High Priest, Jesus Christ. However, in the Old Covenant, all of the people were a priestly people, yet there was still a liturgical priesthood that served God in their name and on their behalf. A ministerial priesthood within the universal priesthood, both inaugurated by God. The very same thing is true in the New Covenant. There exists a priesthood of all the baptized and a liturgical, ministerial/servant priesthood. Why is this so? Why must this be so? Because Christ instructed His Apostles to do a priestly thing when as High Priest He said to them: “Do this in memory of me .” Also, your assertion that a Christian priesthood is a 4th-century innovation is false. Its use as a word is conclusory, not innovative, a specification in terminology. “Sacerdos/hiereus” appears by ~AD 200 with Tertullian and is common by St. Cyprian's time (mid-3rd century), well ahead of the Edict of Milan.

We must distinguish between Sacred Tradition, on the one hand, and manmade traditions on the other hand. The first, which I'll clarify by using a capital-"T," refers to that which the Church hands down from the Apostles/early Church as well as the historical discernment of the Holy Spirit working among God's People; the second, often plural with a lowercase-"t," are more accurately called "customs": practices, habits, devotions, disciplines, or cultural expressions that are not necessarily part of the Deposit of Faith. Tradition is what the Church has received and faithfully hands on; traditions are ways particular Catholic Christian communities have developed to live, express, celebrate, or practice that faith. With regard to capital-T Tradition, let's be clear: The library of books we call the Bible doesn't form itself, doesn't copy itself, doesn't read itself, doesn't interpret itself, doesn't apply itself. Jesus told the Apostles, "he who hears you hears me" and promised the Holy Spirit would lead us to all truth. He founded the Church upon His Holy Spirit and leaders He formed and sent out. The Apostolic role did not cease when the Twelve died. It must be said that no one believes that man-made "traditions" are above the Bible. "Tradition" (capital-“T”), Sacred Tradition, is not the same thing as manmade traditions/customs, but refers to that which has been faithfully handed down under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth Who leads the Church to all truth. Sacred Tradition, of necessity, goes hand-in-hand with Sacred Scripture and the Church's teaching office. There is no real separating these, no matter how much a professed Bible-only believer may wish it so. It is Tradition that we Christians have and refer to a Bible in the first place. (The word "Bible" for Christianity's collection of inspired books is a tradition/custom, with a little "t," just as it is traditions/custom that we organize it with numbered chapters and verses therein.) It is the Tradition and teaching of the Church that the books of this Bible are inspired by God. This Tradition exists alongside any claims of the writings themselves to be inspired--as anyone could write "everything on this page is inspired by God," and that wouldn't necessarily make it so. It is the Tradition of the Church which books comprise Sacred Scripture, a Tradition altered by certain adherents of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. It is Tradition that the four Gospels come to us from writers who were Apostles or closely connected to the Apostles, that the first Gospel was written by Matthew, that the second Gospel was written by Mark, that the third and fourth Gospels were written and/or compiled by Luke and John, that the Pauline/Johannine letters do, in fact, derive from Paul/John...etc. As above, anyone could write "I, Paul, wrote this," but it is the Church, her Tradition, that serves as guarantor of authenticity. It is Tradition that the Apostolic authority of the writers allows for the conclusion that their writings were inspired and that the so-deemed inspired writings of the Apostolic age have been carefully and adequately preserved to our day. To say anything other than that Scripture and Tradition are inseparably intertwined is to misunderstand the terms or (willfully?) misrepresent them.

You said "It existed." "It" being a 66-book biblical canon? No it did not. Show me one Bible prior to the Reformation in the West or the East with 66 books. So I pointed out that if we're guilty of adding anything, it was the 27 books that emerged within the context of the Body of believers, having previously received, understood, and used as Scripture the 46 inspired books of the Greek Septuagint. There never was a 66-book Bible prior to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The problem was never addition, it was subtraction.

@Emperor20066 @AnsweringRCs Any extra content we "slapped...on top of" the early Church's 46-book Greek Old Testament were the 27 books that came to be known as the New Testament! Repeating for comprehension: there was never a 66-book Bible until the Reformation.

Did Jesus fulfill the Old Testament law? Yes. Did He fulfill it perfectly (and uniquely)? Yes. And because that is the case, He perfectly and uniquely fulfilled the commandment to “Honor your father and your mother.” His Father is God the Father, and obviously Jesus perfectly honored Him. Because He is eternal, the eternal Word/Son of God, Jesus perfectly and uniquely HONORS his Father still (present tense) and always has. In part, He now does so also through us, through His Church in Heaven and on earth. Jesus also perfectly and uniquely honored His mother. As the only Son who preceded His mother in time, and as the Word through Whom all things were made, the eternal Son of God honored His mother even in making her. Her coming to be, her conception, was wholly and uniquely honored by her Son. Also, because He is eternal and because Mary’s soul lives on, Jesus continues to HONOR her, right now (present tense). Because He continues to perfectly honor her, we disciples do as well. We don’t honor her instead of Jesus; we honor her because of Jesus. Jesus perfectly HONORS her, and that means always and everywhere, both in Heaven (personally) and on earth (via His Body/Bride, the Church). Now, the Bible does not explicitly narrate the Mary’s bodily Assumption, but if we acknowledge that Jesus in Heaven RIGHT NOW perfectly and uniquely honors Mary, the new Ark of the Covenant, her bodily presence with Him is a fitting theological conclusion. The early Church and Church history attests to this. We make no claim to having relics (earthly remains) of the one whom “all ages will call…blessed.” Mary’s Assumption anticipates the coming to perfection of all the faithful. On earth, the honoring of Mary takes place through His Body, His Bride, the Church. Jesus loved Mary and LOVES her. His Bride loves whom the Bridegroom loves. After all, Mary is OUR mother too, if we are truly in Christ, wedded to Him, one with Him. One cannot be the mother of the Head and not the mother of the Body too. We who are in Christ must also honor the one whom Jesus honors and gave us to be our mother too: Mary, the mother of the the Lord and of the Church. Honor and love are the right and the only approach of the Church to her mother, and neither honor or love is worship.

That is why I went with "School." There was a rabbinic academy at Jamnia (Yabneh). Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai established an academy/school/rabbinic center at Jamnia (Yabneh) c. AD 70-75. Indeed, Rabbis there, per the Mishnah, discussed and resolved whether certain books “defiled the hands” (i.e., were Sacred Scripture). At Jamnia a curse of Nozrim (Christians) was added to the Eighteen Blessings of the Amidah. If the extent of the Ketuvim was not ultimately resolved at this time, certainly it would have been finalized later. And, if so, that still points to a Protestant reliance upon a Jewish canon not ultimately resolved until after the Jewish-and-Christian split.

Did Jesus fulfill the Old Testament law? Yes. Did He fulfill it perfectly (and uniquely)? Yes. And because that is the case, He perfectly and uniquely fulfilled the commandment to “Honor your father and your mother.” His Father is God the Father, and obviously Jesus perfectly honored Him. Because He is eternal, the eternal Word/Son of God, Jesus perfectly and uniquely HONORS his Father still (present tense) and always has. In part, He now does so also through us, through His Church. Jesus also perfectly and uniquely honored His mother. As the only Son who preceded His mother in time, and as the Word through Whom all things were made, the eternal Son of God honored His mother even in making her. Her coming to be, her conception, was wholly and uniquely honored by her Son. Also, because He is eternal and because Mary’s soul lives on, Jesus continues to HONOR her, right now (present tense). Because He continues to perfectly honor her, we disciples do as well. We don’t honor her instead of Jesus; we honor her because of Jesus. Jesus perfectly HONORS her, and that means always and everywhere, both in Heaven (personally) and on earth (via His Body/Bride, the Church). Now, the Bible does not explicitly narrate the Mary’s bodily Assumption, but if we acknowledge that Jesus in Heaven RIGHT NOW perfectly and uniquely honors Mary, the new Ark of the Covenant, her bodily presence with Him is a fitting theological conclusion. The early Church and Church history attests to this. We have no relics of the one whom “all ages will call…blessed.” Mary’s Assumption anticipates the coming to perfection of all the faithful. On earth, the honoring of Mary takes place through His Body, His Bride, the Church. Jesus loved Mary and LOVES her. His Bride loves whom the Bridegroom loves. After all, Mary is OUR mother too, if we are truly in Christ, wedded to Him, one with Him. One cannot be the mother of the Head and not the mother of the Body too. We who are in Christ must also honor the one whom Jesus honors and gave us to be our mother too: Mary, the mother of the the Lord and of the Church. Honor and love are the right and the only approach of the Church to her mother, and neither is worship. A lot of words, I know. And I’m sure that opens me to criticism because of their apparent referent, but everything I’ve said here is ultimately about Jesus Christ and Who He is to all of us. He is faithful, He is obedient. The question is not whether Christians should honor Mary. The question is whether we disciples of the One who perfectly fulfilled the command to “honor…father and…mother" should honor her any less than He does.

@GeauxSox_ @ChogoSprow @LizzieMarbach I believe @malonep18 addressed this well: by the Holy Spirit working in and through anointed leaders and/or a council.

It's the *consensus,* the Communion of the Body in worship, belief, and governance through history, the sense of the Body of the faithful, that matters...and not the novel insights of a mere "anyone" (the latter actually seems to be more of an issue with those who interpret the Church's Bible with a latter-day, fundamentalist, literalist mindset, divorcing its use and meaning from the moors of Sacred Tradition).

Thinking you've "covered" something and actually covering it are two different things. And while your phraseology of "incredibly weak cope" stands as a fancy rhetorical flourish, it still very much begs the question. Jesus's renaming of Simon to be "Rock" isn't the whole of it. He also said to Peter/rock in a unique way "I give you the keys the kingdom." It was the *singular* "you," not the plural.

@Matthew56193629 @residentreformr And you know Jesus didn't speak to Kepha/Cephas in Greek. Don't be disingenuous.

Indeed, Jesus Christ is Head of the Church, His Body. No one said that the Risen Christ is not the invisible Head. No doubt. But, as you cited, the Church has also a foundation of Apostles and prophets…and from among those Apostles one was made “Peter”/Rock, chief, Vicar (deputy), thus, visible head of the Church on earth. Don’t like it? Take it up with Jesus.

@Matthew56193629 @residentreformr Thanks. Good luck with your DIY path.